Ryanair To Provide Free Oral Sex To Business Class Passengers

By alexchasickJune 25, 2008

While American discount airlines like Spirit Air and Southwest alternate between running sophomoric promotions and enforcing their prudish dress codes on passengers, European counterpart Ryanair has trumped them all with its CEO’s announcement that transcontinental business class passengers will receive free “beds and blowjobs.” Video inside (safe for work if your job lets the word “blowjob” be said aloud).

In a press conference, CEO Michael O’Leary discussed Ryanair’s new transcontinental service, which will offer extremely cheap economy fares, as well as luxurious business class seats that include amenities like “white seats,” beds, and oral sex.

It is always dangerous to make predictions, but I feel pretty sure about this one — Ryanair across the Atlantic will fail.

Long haul carriers are able to survive because they sell a combination of expensive business class tickets plus relatively cheap economy tickets to pay for the costs of the long flight. Short hop airlines, like Ryanair and Southwest survive because passengers are willing to pay a minimum amount for a short distance they cannot otherwise travel by car/train/etc and don’t care about frills for, and the airplanes turn around frequently so serve a lot of passengers who generate a lot of incremental revenue.

But who is going to fly Ryanair longhaul across the Atlantic? What cheap vacationer is going to pay for business class on such an airline with a bad reputation, no frequent flier program, and what business traveler would choose Ryanair compared to similar offerings by real service airlines? Ryanair will strand you without a second thought if anything goes wrong. The seats don’t recline so to save money, just like they removed windowshades. The seatbacks have advertising on them and music/ads are piped into the cabin during flight. People who fly with them get what they pay for.

WTF, lighten up! Consumerist has serious stories and lighthearted ones. Personally, I enjoy reading both. If you choose to be a prude, go ahead, leave. You won’t be missed. Maybe on your way out you can demand you $0 refunded to you.

The joke is good…the better is the fact that Ryanair is talking about bridging the gap to the Americas. You think our POS airlines are in trouble now? Wait until their monopoly completely goes to hell.

@tc4b: I’m not complaining because I was “offended”. I thought it was funny, but it doesn’t belong here.

When I first started reading consumerist, I found myself angry at a lot of stories. The stories were about consumers getting seriously screwed by companies. But for the past several months, the stories have been either jokes, nonsense that doesn’t affect anyone, or whines from over-entitled pricks.

Post stories like these, and then don’t complain when people start taking the whole site as a big joke.

A short English lesson. Transcontinental means across the continent. If you fly from NY to LA, you’re on a transcontinental flight. If you fly across the ocean, that’s a trans-Atlantic flight (or trans-Pacific or trans-some other ocean).

@sean77: have a sanka! i don’t think there’s any chance consumerist will head down the “parody” road in its entirety. i think this is appropriate, particularly when we consider all the things that are being taken away from american air travelers, as well as being nickeled and dimed to death. this contrast is relevant to the fact that euro carriers may very well give ours a run for their money–one can’t live in a vacuum.

“Post stories like these, and then don’t complain when people start taking the whole site as a big joke.”

this site is already somewhat a joke, with the poorly researched stories (posted by Consumerist before the whole issue, or the other side, is known) combined with unfiltered nonsense of anonymous users that can post to these comments areas.

You think a blowjob joke is going to diminish the reputation of Consumerist much?

@tc4b: When is that ban hammer coming back? I thought I heard there’s a backlog.

/me hopes his name isn’t on the list.

@sean77: @mwdavis: For future reference, I think the standard practice is to skip a story you don’t like. You see, the editors (and the interns too… they’re learning, please don’t bite them) just might know more about what belongs on the Consumerist than you do.

@kepler11: But who is going to fly Ryanair longhaul across the Atlantic? What cheap vacationer is going to pay for business class on such an airline with a bad reputation…

My parents. They would fly to Asia via HeliumBalloonAir if it were cheap. Which is why I theorize that lots of folks would fly any airline if it were cheap enough… even if they’re the same folks that complain it didn’t have amenity X.

I’m going to have to agree with the others. This story really doesn’t belong on Consumerist, this is what belongs on Fleshbot. Of course, if someone can point out how this qualifies as consumer wrongdoing when a CEO makes a joke, then I’ll change my opinion. But for now, classless and equally without relevance.

Will Ryanair expand their offerings to include most major USA markets? ‘Cause if they do, I am signing up for business class on a daily basis and if I am careful I might even get the company to pay for my daily ….. um what is the word or phrase that I am looking for….. um….. oh I know…. I might even get the company to pay for my daily flight of fantasy.

@parrotuya: Who said it was stewardesses doing the blowing? I’d steer clear of that promotion, sounds pretty easy to do a bait-and-switch and you end up with a bunch of boy george-looking attendants… ew!

@weakdome: Ryanair generally make their cash from surcharges & additional stuff rather than the actual fare. I often travel between Liverpool & Oslo on fares that cost between $1-10 depending on how early I book. But after that, the price adds up – $10 per bag of checked-in luggage, extra charge if wanting priority boarding, etc. The best known trick is the in-flight shop – Hot & cold snacks, drinks, liquor, tourist crap, etc. Once you find that a can of Coca-Cola costs approximately $2, it’s easy to see what Ryanair’s main cash cow is.

Ryanair is a no-frills airline which charge minimum and then increases from there. But as long as a flier knows about how they work in advance, it isn’t that bad – Even after all the additional surcharges, it only costs me around Â£30-40 return via Ryanair. A similar flight would cost me around Â£100+ via Scandinavian Airlines.

I don’t see why this wouldn’t be on Consumerist. The entry of Ryanair into the US will be interesting, if ill-timed. With the cost of the business class in the thousdands maybe it will work for them. Unfortunately, most of the all business class airlines to Europe have folded – maybe there’s a niche. I noticed on the Ryanair website, the company actually put out a press release about this:

“We are delighted to see our DÃ¼sseldorf (Weeze) media conference being the most viewed video on You Tube’s Travel section. Ryanair confirmed at the press conference on 17th June that the proposed transatlantic service will have a very low cost economy cabin with seats priced from â‚¬10 one-way, and a very high quality business class, providing better service than BA or Virgin, and the working title for the business class service is ‘Beds and Blowjobs’.

Since then it is rumoured that the ‘Beds and Blowjobs’ debate comes up at most management meetings and everyone is cock sure, it would grow from strength to strength.

We are surprised that the translator did not find any German word for ‘Blowjobs’. Ryanair’s Linguistic Department will offer one free return flight to a destination of your choice, for travel from October to December (including taxes and charges) to the first Ryanair passenger translating ‘Blowjobs’ into German language”.

If you don’t think this is work appropriate, then quit reading the net and do some damn work.

My boss got a kick out of this story. Seriously, if you don’t like reading the consumerist please quit trying to threaten us with it and just do it already. How high of a horse do you have to be on to think the editors on here care so much about keeping you as a reader that by you leaving a good bye threatening comment they will change the ways things are done around here just for you?

I’m just glad he didn’t mention the 20 euro fares on this video before he started talking about oral sex. I mean if he had talked about Ryanair’s amazing, unbelievably low 20 euro fares in coach during this video, then I might actually think this was a scam to get Ryanair free publicity for their out of this world low 20 euro fares.

Wait, this CEO does talk about Ryanair’s 20 euro fares in this video.

To The Consumerist:

How to know when companies are owning you:
1. Company creates video where CEO says something outrageous.
2. Also on the same video the CEO touts his company’s low prices.
3. Media reports on outrageous video without realizing that they are giving this company tons of free advertising.
4. Media gets owned by company that made video.

I thought The Consumerist was supposed to be exposing fraud, not spreading it.

@kepler11: If SWA or Ryanair served my needs for international travel, I would fly them in a second over the so-called “better” airlines that have difficulties not only with delivering their products in a timely manner but also the truth itself.

So I’m just wondering who exactly is going to be administering this special service? And will it follow the trend of degrading service over time, maybe starting with old biker chicks and moving down to toothless crackheads. hmm….. toothless….

@mandiejackson: You must be thinking of some other airline. I flew Ryan Air once; the flight attendants may may not have quite lived up to expectations from their 2008 calendar, but I wasn’t disappointed.

I had a rotten day, I sure could use a business class flight about right now.

Which reminds me. I was driving down the street the other day and I saw this rather ugly street working lady on the corner. I pulled up and asked her “how much for a business class flight”? She looked at me like I was a farking moron.